BATTLE OF KOREA: Slight Delay?

Early last week nothing but bad roads and poor maps slowed the U.N. advance toward the Korean-Manchurian border. R.O.K. officers whose divisions were racing through northwest Korea jubilantly reported to Eighth Army headquarters: “We will not stop until we bathe our sabers in the Yalu River.”

Leading the U.N. pack was the R.O.K. 6th Division, which since Sept. 23 had marched nearly 700 miles. Said a U.S. captain attached to the division as a military adviser: “These are tough guys . . . They march at night with hardly any clothes, just a rag around their feet inside their shoes, and it just about freezes me.” Just before dusk one evening the “tough guys” of the 6th Division’s 7th Regiment pushed through the border town of Chosan, 130 miles north of Pyongyang, and drove to the south bank of the Yalu.

The Roof Fell In. Before the 7th Regiment had a chance to wet a saber, the roof fell in. Throughout northwest Korea the Communists started unexpectedly strong counterattacks supported by tanks, artillery and mortars. One North Korean force cut the main supply road to Chosan, isolated the R.O.K. 7th Regiment on the Yalu. Three more Red battalions surrounded part of the 6th Division near Onjong, 50 miles south of Chosan. At Unsan, 70 miles north of Pyongyang, a regiment of the R.O.K. ist Division was enveloped by 7,000 Communists. Thirty miles west of Unsan, U.N. air strikes failed to break stubborn North Korean resistance which stalled the drive of the British Commonwealth 27th Brigade toward Sinuiju on the Manchurian border.

R.O.K. commanders in the northwest claimed that the enemy punch had been delivered by Chinese Communist troops brought down from Manchuria. But with or without Chinese aid, the North Koreans were still capable of making trouble. The R.O.K. Capitol Division, moving up Korea’s northeast coast, ran into aggressive enemy resistance backed by artillery. The R.O.K. 3rd Division, driving in from the coast toward the Pujon and Changjin Reservoirs, two major sources of North Korea’s hydroelectric power, reported that a strong Red Force was assembling near Changjin, 40 miles south of the Manchurian border.

Farther south on the east coast the U.S. Marines had also run into unexpected trouble. A Marine battalion was sent toward Kojo, 30 miles southeast of Wonsan, to defend a rail line threatened by the

“Diamond Mountain Gang,” 3,000 bypassed North Korean soldiers led by a brigadier general. Near Kojo one Marine company allowed nearly 1,000 “refugees” to cut its supply line. When the refugees opened fire, the company suffered heavy casualties.

The Border Was the Target. U.N. forces struggled to recover their balance, and partially succeeded. In the northwest the trapped R.O.K. regiments fought their way into the clear, though with some losses to men and equipment. The R.O.K. ist Division was holding Unsan against punishing enemy attacks, and the British Commonwealth 27th Brigade was again making progress toward Sinuiju.

On the east coast the R.O.K. Capitol Division drove into Songjin, a seaport and rail center 75 miles southeast of the Manchurian border, but were stalled a few miles farther north by 2,000 Reds. In the Pujon-Changjin area 10,000 Reds started a drive southeast along the flank of the R.O.K. 3rd Division, headed toward the east coast city of Hamhung, 60 miles north of Wonsan. The Communists were only 30 miles northwest of Hamhung, and threatened to knife in between U.N. forces advancing north of Hamhung and the U.N. base at Wonsan.

At Wonsan, U.S. Marines were moving south to reinforce the battered spearhead near Kojo, and a battalion of R.O.K. Marines had landed below Kojo to form the southern arm of a pincers closing in on the “Diamond Mountain Gang.” Other U.S. Marines were pushing north from Wonsan toward Hamhung. At Hamhung the Marines might face a bitter fight to keep open supply lines to the R.O.K. I Corps (the 3rd and Capitol Divisions) and to the U.S. 7th Infantry Division, which had completed an unopposed landing at Iwon, 80 miles up the east coast from Hamhung. Originally scheduled to come ashore with the Marines at Wonsan, the 7th Division had landed at Iwon to save itself an overland trip north. At the time of the landing, Major General Edward Almond, U.N. commander in northeastern Korea, had tersely described the objective of his columns as “the border.” By week’s end it looked as though their drive to the border might be delayed.